Choose Your Pain
In the Harry Mudd ' |image= |series= |production= |producer(s)=105 |story= Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts and Kemp Powers |script= Kemp Powers |director= Lee Rose |imdbref=tt5870996 |guests=Rainn Wilson as Harry Mudd, Conrad Coates as Terral, Emily Coutts as Keyla Detmer, Julianne Grossman as Discovery Computer (voice), Patrick Kwok-Choon as Rhys, Sara Mitich as Airiam, Simon Northwood as Shuttle Pilot, Oyin Oladejo as Joann Owosekun, Christopher Russell as Milton Richter, Kirk Salesman as Shuttle Klingon 2 and Tyler Evan Webb as Shuttle Klingon 1 |previous_production=The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry |next_production=Lethe |episode=DSC S01E05 |airdate= 15 October 2017 |previous_release=The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry |next_release=Lethe |story_date(s)=December 2256. |previous_story=The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry |next_story=Lethe }} Summary December 2256: Captain Lorca is called to a starbase where Admiral Cornwell orders him to limit the use of the spore drive of the Discovery, in order not to risk losing the only prototype. On the way back to his ship, Lorca's shuttle is boarded by the Klingons, and his pilot is killed. Lorca is taken to a prison cell with the criminal Harry Mudd and Starfleet Lieutenant Ash Tyler. On the Discovery, Michael Burnham is concerned that the condition of the tardigrade deteriorates with each jump. Acting Captain Saru, however, orders her to carry on regardless, in order to find the missing captain. Burnham convinces Stamets to work out an alternative solution, incorporating DNA of the tardigrade to another living organism, such as a human. When Saru notices that the spore drive is down, he confines Burnham to her quarters and tells Stamets to activate the drive again. After jumping to the position of the Klingon prisoner transport, deep in Klingon space, the tardigrade's condition is so bad that the creature goes into stasis. Meanwhile, on the Klingon vessel, Lorca finds out that Mudd has been spying on the Starfleet officers for the Klingons. When the guards appear again, to take one prisoner to be tortured, Lorca and Tyler attack them. They manage to escape from the Klingon vessel in a raider. Saru recognizes that one of the raiders approaching the Discovery is being pursued by the other Klingon ships, and he arranges for Lorca and Tyler to be beamed out. He then orders the jump back into Federation territory. Since the tardigrade is disabled, Stamets gave himself an injection of its DNA and performed the jump in its place. Saru orders Burnham to help the supposedly sentient tardigrade, whereupon Burnham decides to release the creature into freedom. Errors and Explanations EAS Continuity # The ship identified as "D7 battlecruiser" has nothing in common with the famous Klingon ship design and its known variations. Ash Tyler estimates a crew complement of 30 to 40 but he may be mistaken, considering that he thinks it's a "prisoner transport". According to TOS: Day of the Dove the crew complement of a D7 matches that of a Constitution class. At one point, the battlecruiser is even called a "Bird-of-Prey", as if everything were the same. So far for writers looking up even nonessential facts at Memory Alpha… Again, this could be evidence of DSC being in a different version of the Prime Universe. Nitpicking # Lorca is mistrustful about Ash Tyler at first, saying that no one survives seven months in a Klingon prison. Tyler then mentions that the captain of the ship (obviously L'Rell) has a special interest in him. But L'Rell has been on the wreck of T'Kuvma's ship all along, and arranged for her rescue no more than three weeks ago, at the end of The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry. Even though the truth about Ash's captivity may be revealed later, it still leaves the time of only three weeks as a problem. It also raises the question why L'Rell had to stay and starve in the wreckage of the binary stars ship when loyal Klingon ships were available to rescue or resupply her on short notice. perhaps the non loyal ships would have been close enough to prevent easy resupply. # The Klingons need Harry Mudd and a listening device affixed to his bug named Stuart to know what their prisoners are talking of. Discovery continues the strange tradition that prison cells in Star Trek never have built-in audio or video surveillance. An astute prisoner could figure out how to avoid revealing information in a way that can be picked up by fixed surveillance equipment. Category:EpisodesCategory:Discovery